โ Scribed by Ellice McDonald
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
Cooperation in Research.--ELLICE McDONALD, Director. One of the most significant happenings in the last fifty years has been the increase in the scale of operations. This invades every phase of human endeavor in the more advanced centers of civilization. War itself has developed from the comparatively small professional or semiprofessional armies to the employment of masses involving all the people of a country, either in the armed forces or in employment pertinent to warlike purposes. In this country and in the war just over, not only were the armed forces involved, but everyone in the whole country was doing "war work" for the production of warlike material for the maintenance of the army by producing food or by other efforts and occupations which aimed at the aid and comfort of the military, so that these could do their work better, more quickly and more easily in order that the enemy might be defeated and peace return.
This could not be possible without the huge aggregations of capital in corporate arrangement which were available for the Government to call to their uses. Where would the huge army be supplied if there were not available such great industrial units as the Ford Motor, General Motors, the du Pont Company, the oil companies, and many others.
Organization is the key and this has occurred through the efforts of exceptional men and the accumulation of capital. But the exceptional men did it and created the enormous organizations. Of course they could not have done it unless the time was right. They had the special qualities required at the right time. They had the enterprise, the drive, and the judgment. They created fortunes many times that of the greatest fortunes of the revolutionary period such as those of Stephen Girard and General George Washington. It is a matter of increase of size of operations. But as in every successful organization, it required the advent of the exceptional man.
An expression of enlarged effort is the increase in horsepower. A strong man can exert only about one sixth of a horsepower in sustained effort. Yet the United States in peacetime produced 15 horsepower for every man, woman and child in the country, not counting automobiles which produced as much more. The total product of manufacturing corresponds to the amount of mechanical power employed. Wages taken as an expression of enlarged effort have increased in a regular ratioand always in this country correspond to the amountof horsepower developed. In the United States and Great Britain wages and horsepower rise together in direct proportion; in Italy, a backward nation, 53I
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